Tape Collection Artwork

Here's a picture that V made using a variety of tape.  

It was an easy and fun project to do together.

Youngstar rating

I received the results of my Youngstar assessment and my daycare has been rated at 3 stars.  I actually received enough points (24 out of 40) to qualify for a 4 star rating, but because I've been open for less than a year, the highest rating I could get was only 3 stars.

If you haven't already heard about Youngstar, it is the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families 5 star daycare quality rating system.  You can find out more by going to their website at:  http://dcf.wisconsin.gov/youngstar/ .

I've heard that most family daycare providers just accept the automatic 2 star rating that they are given, but I knew I could do better than that.  I'm glad that I opted for the informal assessment and coaching.  Next year I plan on going for a 5 star rating with a formal assessment and because of the help I received this year, I know exactly what I will have to do to get the highest rating.

Also worthwhile was the $500 Youngstar grant that I received.   With it, my daycare got a new toddler height table that seats 6, a toddler sized sofa, a shatterproof mirror, and 6 chairs of varying of heights specifically for toddlers.  My daycare kids love the new furniture!

Christmas Tree, Oh, Christmas Tree!

Since it is December, of course we've been reading some Christmas books and singing a few (non-religious) carols.

Here's a picture of my Christmas tree.  Every day the kids love to spend time looking at the ornaments.  They've been very good about only touching them gently.  I always remind them, "Gentle.  Only use one finger." which seems to be working since they haven't broken any yet.  Even so, next year I think I might use only shatterproof ornaments, just so I don't have to worry about it so much.

Conversations about food

Kids love stickers.  I bought a Melissa And Doug Make-A-Meal Sticker Pad from Amazon.  With a variety of table settings and lots and lots of food stickers, kids get to design their own meals.  My daycare kids loved it!

It was fun and also a great way to start a conversation with young kids about food.  We talked about which foods they liked best, what a balanced meal looks like, and about which are healthy foods and which are unhealthy food choices.

To the left are some of the first meals that L created using the stickers.

Pretend Play

This morning the kids decided to use the butterfly nets to catch imaginary ladybugs.  I love it when they really get into pretending.  They were so cute and also got a lot of physical activity in while they ran around.

That's our $50 Black Friday playhouse in the background.  They kids love it and are always asking if I can bring it inside with them when our outside playtime comes to an end.

Child Art

A beautiful painting by V, using tempera paint.

Daycare Retro

A fair amount of the books and toys at my daycare are from my childhood (the 1980's) and my youngest brother's (the 1990's).  My dad is quite the packrat and has held onto a lot of our old toys.  Every now and then he brings over a box of random toys.  The kids love it and don't seem to mind at all that they don't know any of the characters.  They say, "Yea!  Pops brought us more toys!"  Then I have to quickly sort them and wash them since they've been in the basement for 20 to 30 years gathering dust.  Here are some of our retro items:

These are my Lonely Doll books from my childhood
(but they were actually published in the late 1950's)

More books from my childhood

Books from Ryan's childhood

Weird little monster guys from Ryan's childhood

Ewok battering ram (Return of the Jedi)

A Gizmo stuffed animal doll (Gremlins)

2 different versions of the Batmobile (from the 90's)

Legos from my childhood
(Rob and I had tons of Legos!)

Various action figures from Ryan's childhood
(TMNT, Batman, X-Men, The Tick, etc.)

My Fisher-Price teddy bear picnic basket from the 1970's
and Ryan's 90's Koosh balls and Dot Warner figure

We also have a number of new toys that were originally popular when I was a kid; like My Little Ponies, Cabbage Patch Kids, and Star Wars figures.  And a number of new "classics" like Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Hot Wheels cars, and more.  Everything old is new again.

my easy day

I call Tuesdays "my easy day" because it's just the two girls.  They play together pretty well and they play very peacefully separately.

Our only real difficulties come from the two of them competing for my attention.  They both seem to develop an uncontrollable need to be held right when I start to cook lunch, complete with whining and crying if I don't comply immediately.

V sometimes gets annoyed with S's lack of understanding about personal space, but she is still a baby after all.

Overall, it's still a pretty easy day.  There's never any hitting and very rarely any crying.  It's the least messy day, toywise.  The girls are good at cleaning up after themselves and they like helping me.

Playing together

L likes to set up house inside the little circus tent and he pretends that we are all one big family.  We always have to have a dog and a cat which he gives the same names as his real dog and cat.  The  "family" today also included a little stuffed hamster, lots of babies, a few dollhouse people, and lizards.  We had bacon for our pretend dinner.  The lizards ate ice cream and then had to sun themselves on the roof of the tent to warm up again.  L always leads the play and dislikes it anytime I suggest something.

Package from California

Last Thursday we received our state culture swap package from California.  It contained a map of California, wildflower seeds, chop sticks, fool's gold, Sees chocolates, pepitas, a mexican bingo game, a California magazine, a Bay City guide, a map of San Francisco, a SF Giants magnet, seaweed chips, information about Redwood trees and a specimen, a California mobile activity, other activity pages, brochures, and postcards.

The kids went to work on the chocolates immediately and L applied the Giants magnet to the refrigerator.  Today we got a chance to go through everything in more detail.

The kids all tried the roasted seasoned seaweed.  L said it was "interesting", but stopped declined a second piece.  V really liked it and would have continued to eat it, but I cut her off after her third piece.  S made her scrunched up face, but ate her whole piece anyway.

L liked the idea of the California mobile activity, but we tried to do it twice and it just wasn't happening.  So I finished it by myself.  S enjoys examining it when I stand under it while holding her.

What we did this week...

Here are some of the things we did this week:  played with Play-Doh, gave animals figurines and our dollhouse dolls "baths" in the bathroom sink, had pretend tea and cookies together, played with baby dolls, danced to music, tried out our new tutus, made funny faces in the mirror, made shape pictures with glue sticks and cut-outs (see left), played pretend clothing store, played hide-and-seek, emptied my piggy-bank and then refilled it twice, looked at different pennies, played My Little Ponies, had an indoor picnic lunch, picked and ate up the last of the sugar snap peas, and so much more!

Favorite books we read this week included Baby Dear by Eloise Wilkins (which I must have read nearly 20 times), A Tree Named Steve, and An Earthworm's Life.

We also received our state culture exchange package from California.  The kids were really excited about opening it and tore through it, but then the Sees chocolates distracted them from paying much attention to anything else.  So, I plan on going through it again with them in more detail on Monday.

MORE MUSIC!

Still more additions to our kid music library:

 

• Sing Me To Sleep:  Indie Lullabies
• Yo Gabba Gabba:  Music is Awesome! vol. 1
• Yo Gabba Gabba:  Music is Awesome! vol. 3
• VA:  Mother Goose Songs